Content warning: animal cruelty. In Answer Me This episode 391, we hear about eviscerated rabbits, I’m A Celebrity food-kills, and a zoo in a deadly stunt. But there’s some mysterious dog magic to compensate.
We also consider:
the history of video phones
the baby in Labyrinth
fiction you didn’t realise was science fiction
‘free’ apples
pastry
wedding banns
dog shit
and
going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for Apple and Android – is further intel from August and Joel about banana-containing foods of Sweden. Prepare the stomach-runway for the Flying Jacob!
Hear our other work:
• Helen makes The Allusionist, an entertainment show about language, and Veronica Mars Investigations, recapping every episode of Veronica Mars from the beginning – currently the very stressful end of season 2 is nigh!
• Olly hosts many podcasts, and you can find them all at ollymann.com, including The Modern Mann and The Week Unwrapped.
• Martin makes music which you can hear palebirdmusic.com, on the Pale Bird podcast, and on Spotify etc. You can also join him in contemplating the work of every song by Tom Waits Tom Waits in Song By Song, and he produced and composed the new kids’ science podcast Maddie’s Sound Explorers, hosted by Maddie Moate.
This episode is sponsored by:
• The Great Courses Plus, the streaming library of courses on topics from yoga to mystery fiction to formal logic to dog training. AMT listeners get a free month at thegreatcoursesplus.com/answer.
• Squarespace. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
Send us your QUESTIONS, in writing or as voice recordings, to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Got festive questions? Send them in by the end of November!
We’ll be back with AMT392 on 3 December 2020, and there’ll be a Retro AMT episode in your feeds on 19 November.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT391 Child-Friendly Rating: 30%. A few swears, and too many dead animals for comfort. •••
We really hope you didn’t first hear the sad news about JLS on Answer Me This! Episode 255. If you did, please accept our condolences at this difficult time.
Through our veil of grief, today we discuss:
fruit PDA
inappropriate gifts
Volvos
proofreading Pitbull’s party anthems
Pop Star to Deer Farmer Abz from 5ive
bangs
Andre 3000 + Beyonce covering Winehouse
porn prodigies
Paul Torrisi
Olly’s mum’s sex tips
and
Olly’s cat’s arsehole.
Plus: Olly’s not so much house-hunting as Costco cupboard-hunting; Michelle Obama makes Helen weepy; and if unlike Martin the Sound Man’s parents you DO want to listen to his albums, get them from thesoundoftheladies.com. Perfect soundtrack for gardening and cat funerals.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we consider the ridiculousness of reading about Web 2.0 via Web 0.0, ie print media, which is going the way of JLS before too long.
We don’t intend to go anywhere soon, though, so do send us your QUESTIONS for forthcoming episodes: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Bye!
Helen & Olly
PS Revisit our previous discourse about the male and female symbols in AMT96 and JLS in AMT187.
Happy Valentine’s Day, listeners! We know how you love to celebrate the feast day of the patron saint of plague, epilepsy and bee-keeping, so we’ve got a wonderful gift for you: A FREE AUDIOBOOK FROM AUDIBLE! Gallivant to answermethispodcast.com/audible right now to get it, then as a warm-up to your many hours of free audio content, listen to half an hour of free audio content, ie Answer Me This! Episode 246:
This week we consider:
the Chinese zodiac
the longest queue ever
Lemar
premium cinema seats
stop-motion water
baby clothes
asexual koalas
Mike Leigh vs. Red Dragon Les Miserables vs. Undercover Boss Mary Poppins vs. The Sound of Music
Pete Doherty vs. Peter Brame
and
the point of kissing.
Plus: Olly’s going to build his business empire on XXX fortune teller fish, whilst Helen’s looking into a range of mouth condoms for slimmers; and Martin the Sound Man is a shrivelled little short tongue man. But at least he’s not the only one.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) is further contemplation upon the masterwork of David Sneddon, star of Fame Academy series 1 and AMT245. It’s a song which bears many hours, nay months, of interpretation. This week’s lesson: what’s up with your sleeves, Sneddon?
Instead of whatever Valentine’s love token you were planning to give us, please send your QUESTIONS: email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis. (Although, when we say ‘instead’, we do mean ‘as well as’, if the token was heart-shaped boxes of Ferrero Rocher. Keep ’em coming.)
We hope you enjoyed the Best of Answer Me This! 2012 – Part I last week. If you did, you’ll also enjoy The Best of Answer Me This! 2012 – Part II, and if you didn’t, maybe you’ll prefer The Best of Answer Me This! 2012 – Part II. Either way, you should listen to The Best of Answer Me This! 2012 – Part II:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just £1.99 at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
Wherein we meet again our auld acquaintances:
Phantom of the Opera
Hamlet Hamlet
Prince Philip’s bladder Killer Net
Angela Lansbury fantasies
R Kelly’s fancy parties
the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution
Devon vs Cornwall scone wars
sex Jenga
the Owl and the Pussycat
the 21st-century Sweeney Todd
Olly’s solo sex tape
Helen taking an off-brand fruit into the Apple store
and
Charlie’s Angles.
And there are more previously unheard bits of AMT, which you can have more of every week if you posess the AMT App, available for iDevices and Android – on which you also get our Best Of episodes from the past five years, if you trawl through diligently enough.
Please be generous with your QUESTIONS for AMT in 2013: email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
We’ll be back on 10th January 2013, but you can still hear plenty of us before then:
• We’ll be running through the year’s biggest online events on Saturday Edition, BBC 5 Live 8pm 29th December or available shortly after as the Let’s Talk About Tech podcast.
• Olly will be Manning the microphone on LBC 97.3 FM, 1-4am most nights from Xmas Eve to Jan 3rd – check lbc.co.uk for the schedule, and rouse yourself from your festive stupor to give him a call and keep him company.
• Helen will crop up on BBC 5 Live’s Radio Review of 2012, hosted by Jane Garvey and Mike Sweeney, which will be broadcast on at 11pm on Christmas Eve, repeated 4pm on Christmas Day, or, if you want to listen at a more sensible time, it’ll be available on the 5 Live website straight after.
• You can hear us discussing Christmas gadgets and songs on Steve Wright in the Afternoon on BBC Radio 2 on 20th December. UPDATE: Here’s the link to the item on iPlayer.
• And we wrote some bits for the Celebrity Juice Christmas Specials; part one is already on ITV Player and part two will follow on tonight.
We hope you have very happy festivities, and we’ll see you next year!
Helen & Olly
PS if you need more noise to drown out the sound of sleighbells and Wizzard, direct yourself to our Jubilee and Sports Day albums, as well as AMT1-120.
Hello listeners! Refreshed by a month off, we return with an episode bursting with fresh new questions. Well, fresh except for the one about the Spice Girls, which we maintain IS fresh as long as you fell into a coma in the summer of 1996 and only just woke up. If that is your situation, we’ll help you catch up on what you missed. We hate to be the ones to break it to you, but Kate Moss and Johnny Depp split up. And things have been awfully quiet on the Meg Mathews front lately.
Everyone else, put Answer Me This! Episode 229 into your ears:
Plus: Olly is terrified of his own pubes (until they start paying rent for their residence upon his body); Helen’s attempt to trick the Tooth Fairy backfired right into her bank balance; and Martin the Sound Man dreams about how, in an alternate universe, Simon and Garfunkel would have replaced ‘The Sound of Silence’ with the sound of cartoon hammers.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) is a question from Ginger Paul about toilet attendants, bog butlers, lavatory landlords, ablution assistants – whatever you want to call them, the principle is the same, but what’s with all the lollipops? Loo-lipops? Lolli-poops?
Our new series will be running all the way to Christmas, but only if you send us QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line (Skype answermethis or dial 0208 123 5877) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
We’re as surprised as you to discover that Answer Me This! Episode 221 opens with a heated discussion upon the topic, ‘What is art?’ Check us out with our high brows!
Naturally our brows don’t stay high for long; in decreasing order of highfalutingness, we talk about:
Edward Lear
double-ended ice cream
Tracey Emin Jeremy Deller‘s teenage parties
the Marquis de Sade
firefighters
bridesmaids
pole dancing
Charlie Chaplin drowning horribly
the pull-out method
and Annabel Chong.
Plus: Olly is horrified to discover that there’s a boarding school-style communal wanking game that he’d never heard of; Helen knows how to make anything unsexy, using ham; and Martin the Sound Man would like to remind you that you only have a couple of weeks left to enter his Science Songwriter of the Future competition, so make the old man happy because he’s got a bad ear this week.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App Helen gives you a great tip for making new friends on late-night public transport, based on her recent encounter with a stranger’s pelvis on the Victoria Line. That stranger’s pelvis could be all yours, if you avail yourself of the app on iDevices or Android! Don’t worry if you’re married; the pelvis won’t be worrying about that either.
We don’t want your pelvises, but we do want your QUESTIONS, so thrust them our way by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leaving voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis). As a reward, you may watch the video below of Eleanor from Norwich’s pole dancing team going about their totally sexless business.
There are a lot of really weird stories in the news at the moment – cannibals, dismembered bodies, Octomom doing a porno – but fortunately this week, AMT218 is a largely horror-free zone:
Today we talk of:
marriage licences
the Pitcher and Piano
expensive clothes
actors’ motivation Fifty Shades of Grey vs. The White Hotel vs. Wuthering Heights
Mario vs. Lazarus
moist Jo Whiley
Tinky Winky, live in Luxembourg
outlet stores
death by giant snail
and
#.
Plus: Olly doesn’t want to get married in Vegas; Helen doesn’t want to have to watch embarrassing bodies on Embarrassing Bodies; but Martin the Sound Man DOES want you to enter his science songwriting competition, so click here to find out how to enter before you dash off to your zither-room to compose.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) involves Claudia from Melbourne asking whether you can text the police rather than calling them. With all the cuts to public services, unfortunately the police have had to lay off their full-time team of interpreters waiting to figure out what you mean by HLP pls sum1 tryn2 mrdr me non-LOL srsly >:-O
If you still have proper command over vowels, send us a QUESTION for next week: deliver emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and/or leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Also, if you’re especially interested in what goes on around here, you can hear us being interviewed on the latest episode of Podcast Squared. We hope that the demystification of our Process doesn’t spoil AMT for you. If not, we’ll see you back here next Thursday.
Answer Me This! Episode 206 is an exciting one, because we’re joined by legendary comedian and erstwhile rabbi Jackie Mason!
We snuck backstage to talk to him at the Wyndhams Theatre, where he’s performing his farewell show Fearless – click here to find out more about it and buy tickets – and we learned many things: real people are better to watch than Caddyshack II; Lucozade has yet to break America; and Madonna is a sick person (well, we did have an inkling of that already).
For more wisdom, listen:
Before you get to hear Jackie, though, you have to listen to us waffling on as usual, about such matters as:
legless frogs
the legal smoking age limit
litotes
sex vs. Buckaroo
Roman numerals Snog Marry Avoid?
proxy servers
and
heirloom gobstoppers.
Plus: Olly exposes The Artist complainers as FRAUDS; Helen’s inner Russell Brand is unleashed; and before you ask, the reason Martin the Sound Man didn’t come with us to meet Jackie Mason is NOT because no goys were allowed, but because he had to go to work! Science waits for no man.
There’s more Jackie in this week’s Bit of Crap on the App, where he holds forth upon the upcoming US election and Harry Redknapp’s dog, so fire up your iDevices or Android.
AMT is back to its normal guestless state next week, but we’re not alone so long as we have your QUESTIONS; so leave a voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) or send an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
What an eventful year 2011 has been. Earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear terror! Sit-ins, protests, riots! So many revolutions, we can’t even choose a favourite! Charlie Sheen being a messed-up addict – but funny, so it’s fine! Osama Bin Laden’s dramatic exit! Pippa Middleton’s bottom!
Plenty has happened here at Answer Me This! too, so take a jaunt with us into the vale of the recent past: here is The Best of AMT2011, part 1.
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just £1.99 at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
What a lot we learnt this year! About such things as:
space tourism
coloured bathroom suites
William’n’Dorothy Wordsworth
celebrity cock-shots
ornamental jellyfish The Apprentice
Dodgy
‘Like a G6’
Dane Bowers’n’Jordan’s sex tape
John Travolta’s face vs. Nicolas Cage’s face
glass slippers
impulse bags
fake tan
undone flies Saturday Toilet
Olly’s lost night of Chico
doll hospital
phallic salad
phallic statues
phallic celebrity waxworks
phallic phalluses
and
Adult Milkybar.
There’s plenty more to come next week; but if you want plenty more AMT next year, then send us your QUESTIONS: deliver emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis).
We have to say a huge thanks to everybody who has sent us something to celebrate our impending 5th birthday – we’ve already received many glorious cards, some rather exciting little presents, and enough sugary treats to push us over to the wrong side the Type 2 Diabetes fence! If you want to propel us into hyperglycaemic hyperdrive, or you want to show off your best penmanship, please dispatch a missive to:
Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ
Thankyou for delighting us by post, listeners. You really are a tiptop bunch.
See you next Thursday, for the Best of AMT2011 part 2!
Look! Photographic evidence that journalist, writer, broadcaster and jolly nice chap Jon Ronson performed his special guestular duties! More importantly, here’s the audio evidence, namely Answer Me This! Episode 190:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
Things we learn from Jon:
i) that to be cast on reality telly, you only need to wave your Prozac prescription in front of the producers’ eyes;
ii) how he could have been Captain Birdseye – no, really!
iii) how the 21st-century KKK are getting rusty;
iv) how you have to speak up when you’re on Conan. We’ll remember that, as it’s bound to come in handy soon in our lives.
We also talk of:
psychopathy (unsurprisingly)
conspiracy theories (ditto) Pleasurewood Hills
Disney character breakfast
Mr Blobby vs. Woody Bear
Noel Edmonds’s Winnebago vs. Les Dennis’s Winnebago
James Middleton’s arse vs. Pippa Middleton’s arse George Galloway’s milky mortification
David Icke
the name ‘Beryl’
traffic cops
the Little Mermaid’s mobility issues
and
pigtails.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available on iPhone, iPad and Android) is Jon venting his wrath at his archenemy Yo! Sushi. If that whets your appetite for more Jon Ronson, do read his latest book The Psychopath Test, visit jonronson.com, follow @jonronson on Twitter, and buy the Guardian on Saturdays just in case he’s in it that week.
Next week’s episode is the last till October 13th, so get your QUESTIONS in: send voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Harness your very finest question-composing abilities, so together we may endeavour to send off this series in style.
Over the years, one question has kept us awake at night (other than, “Did I remember to turn the oven off?” and “How can the next-door neighbours like listening to Duffy this much?”): where do all the spurned Build-A-Bear bears go? Do they end up in a bear workhouse, or are they turned out onto the streets to survive by turning tricks and picking pockets?
Thankfully, no. After Answer Me This! Episode 179 we will, at last, be able to sleep the deep sleep borne out of the relief that the poor orphant bears do find a good home:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
In today’s episode we also consider:
Co-op Funerals
doll hospitals
the mystery of Glenn Miller
McCain’s Pizza Rollers
office toys
cycle helmets
the most striking aspect of Jordan’n’Dane Bowers’ sex tape
reality TV vs. reality
Dame Bruce Forsyth Chris Cooley’s cock (NSFW!)
Ruth Badger
the Black Eyed Peas’ next hit (shudder)
20p
Gwyneth Paltrow in Glee
symbolism in ET
and
toff prison.
Plus: Olly sees right through posh Findus Crispy Pancakes to the publicity stunt beneath; Helen surmises why seminal movie scenes such as this are not set in Business Studies lessons; and Martin the Sound Man pipes up in favour of hot goo. Yes, he does.
Please join us next week for episode 180, in which we will do a full 180 on everything we’ve ever said so far, apart from one thing which will remain forever true: we want you to send us your QUESTIONS, by leaving voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or find answermethis on Skype) or sending emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Gimme gimme gimme.
Look, we know that ALL of you are in too great a tizzy about the impending release of the new Twilight film to concentrate on Answer Me This! Episode 118, but try. Just for us. Even though we’re not all sparkly and bouffant:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p, through iTunes or a secure PayPal server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
This week we speak of:
Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey
Smeg fridges
the True Blood theme tune
Helen’s dad vs. Peter Pan
the colour of Jesus Lois Duncan
stupid terrorists
Dermot O’Leary Red Dwarf
and
fun things to do in Birmingham (UK, not Alabama).
Additionally, Olly dreams of walking through a sewer with Dan Ackroyd and a Ninja Turtle; Helen swoons over a Come Dine With Me contestant who seems to have OCD and too few hobbies; and Martin the Sound Man brings up The Master and Margarita as casually as Helen’s baby nephew brings up his lunch. Just in case you were wondering, he is THE CLEVEREST MAN IN THE WORLD. Try to forget it. He won’t let you.
Please, as ever, send in YOUR QUESTIONS – via answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, Skype IDanswermethis or the question line 0208 123 5877 – and if you want to tell us about your funny or far-fetched nickname like Smeg did this week, please do so in a comment upon this post. But it has to be a good one, OK? “My name’s David but my friends call me Dave” will not cut it! You’re competing against an adult man named Smeg, remember.
vs. 
vs. 
, visit 
Answer Me This! Podcast 
EPISODE 255 – you can’t build up to the Shewee
May 2, 2013Hello listeners,
We really hope you didn’t first hear the sad news about JLS on Answer Me This! Episode 255. If you did, please accept our condolences at this difficult time.
Through our veil of grief, today we discuss:
fruit PDA
inappropriate gifts
Volvos
proofreading Pitbull’s party anthems
Pop Star to Deer Farmer
Abz from 5ive
bangs
Andre 3000 + Beyonce covering Winehouse
porn prodigies
Paul Torrisi
Olly’s mum’s sex tips
and
Olly’s cat’s arsehole.
Plus: Olly’s not so much house-hunting as Costco cupboard-hunting; Michelle Obama makes Helen weepy; and if unlike Martin the Sound Man’s parents you DO want to listen to his albums, get them from thesoundoftheladies.com. Perfect soundtrack for gardening and cat funerals.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we consider the ridiculousness of reading about Web 2.0 via Web 0.0, ie print media, which is going the way of JLS before too long.
We don’t intend to go anywhere soon, though, so do send us your QUESTIONS for forthcoming episodes: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Bye!
Helen & Olly
PS Revisit our previous discourse about the male and female symbols in AMT96 and JLS in AMT187.
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Tags:5ive, Abz, Alex James, Amy Winehouse, ancient gods, Ancient Rome, Andre 3000, anus, art, Aston Merrygold, awkward, bands, bangs, Beyonce, birthday presents, bisexuality, bodily functions, bottoms, boundaries, boybands, break-ups, cars, clubs, comments, Costco, couples, deer, equine, erotica, families, family, fringes, fruit, gifts, hair, hair styles, homosexuality, horses, innuendo, International Love, iron, JB Gill, JLS, Latin, literature, M&S, Mars, Marvin Humes, Michelle Obama, multiple sclerosis, music, novels, Olly's cat, One Direction, optimism, Oritse Williams, parents, party anthems, Paul Torrisi, PDA, Pitbull, pop, pop bands, prawn, prodigy, reality tv, romance, Romans, Rupert Grint, sex, sexuality, Shewee, Simon Cowell, SoundCloud, splits, stag parties, symbols, telly, the apprentice, The Big Reunion, The Voice, venison, Volvo, weapons, Will.I.Am, X Factor, yuk
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